


Ikara and the City

by madwriteson



Category: Original Work
Genre: Coming of Age, Enchanted Architecture, Enchanted City, Fae & Fairies, Labyrinths, Monsters, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-13 15:15:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28905471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madwriteson/pseuds/madwriteson
Summary: Ikara has always lived in a magical, ever-shifting city of men and fae and monsters. And she has always known that it will be her duty some day to protect the people without magic of their own from the more dangerous elements of the city, a duty passed down in her bloodline, from parent to child.But now, with her father's age starting to show, she must step more fully into the role of Lord Protector. And when secrets that have been kept from her for her entire life begin to unfold, drawing her into intrigues spun by the elf-lord Halsifon and bringing her to the attention of the Horned King, lord of monsters, she starts to wonder if she can even protect herself.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story I started writing while in college, probably some time between 2006 and 2008, which was further drafted during NaNoWriMo 2011. I'm polishing up the already written sections and posting it here in the hope that this will help me finally finish it.

My name is Ikara, and I live in an enchanted city. It stretches as far as the eye can see and the leg can walk, though the path your legs take you on will be a queer one, bending back on itself even if you walk straight, taking you a day’s journey from home in the space of an hour. Everywhere you look is a patchwork of different times and places and peoples, forgotten places and lost ones, now made part of one glorious and dazzling and dizzying whole.

The people who live here are as varied as the city itself, human and fae alike, and stranger peoples still. But even here, where everyone is strange to everyone else, like tends to gravitate to like.

My father is the Lord Protector of non-magical people of the city, a position that will, in time, become mine, by right of the city-sense that runs thick in our blood. On the other side of the city is the realm of the fae, kept in line by the diamond-hard fist of the elf-lord Halsifon. And in between is the Labyrinth of the Horned King, where all the creatures go who are neither one thing nor another or both at once, a haven for beings as monstrous as the King who cares for them.

No one knows how old the city is, or how to get here, or how to leave, except perhaps the Horned King. Stories say that he has been here since the very beginning of the city, and that the city could not continue without him. Perhaps that is why, for all that we fear him and the citadel of monsters he keeps, none of us dares to speak of him in anything but the most respectful of tones.

I am my father’s only child. My mother died giving birth to me, but I admit I had never felt her loss. I had my father, and I had Abba, my troll nursemaid. She should rightly be a creature of the elf-lord, but she came to my father when I was very young and said she had been called to care for me. She had been my caretaker ever since. All my life, she had been the one to calm me when I was upset, to amuse me when I was bored, to hug me when I cried. My father left me in her capable hands while he went about his duties as Lord Protector, keeping order and protecting that which is his to protect. Often he would confer with the elf-lord over some matter that concerned them both; more rarely, he would have a conference with the Horned King.

Perhaps I would have missed my mother more if there were something of her in my appearance. I look like my father, tall and bony, with a strong jaw and stronger cheekbones, all of it crowned by a great dandelion puff of curls. But while it makes him look strong and regal, it makes me look scrawny and awkward. I spend more time in trousers than in skirts, feeling no need to dress the part of Lord Protector before it’s my time. Skirts—especially the sort with hip-pads that were in fashion at the moment—always made me feel as if I were pretending to be something I’m not.

My father, at least, does not seem to care one way or another. He simply shrugs and sends me a tailor to produce new trousers every time I manage to outgrow mine. As long as my clothing marks me as part of his family during official occasions, he lets me dress however I want outside of them.

Abba finds it appalling. She always nags me about dressing myself as the young woman I’ve become and the daughter of the Lord Protector. I simply look at her and point out that the long skirts she wants to put me in are impractical for my everyday duties; if I am going to go out with my father to see to the needs of our people, I am better off unburdened by heavy skirts and tight bodices and the restrictive underclothing that goes with the sort of clothing that the fashionable set tends to don these days. She is unable to argue against that, though every once in a while, just to mollify her, I let her talk me into one of the full, knee-length skirts so often worn by workpeople.

As I have grown, so have my duties. As my father’s only child, I am his heir; when he dies, the mantle of Lord Protector will pass to me. I have to learn the names and ways of all of the people and places that will someday be mine to care for, and how to protect against threats from the other factions in the city. The Horned King’s subjects mostly keep to themselves, but things are always uneasy between us and the fae folk. They would drive us out of the city if they could; since they cannot (for there is nothing but the city) they wage a subtle war against us, all wrapped up in cunning plans to take what is ours.Of course, we return the favor. The Horned King sometimes intervenes on one side or the other, if one faction grows too strong or if it threatens to break into open warfare, though this has not happened within the lifetime of anyone still alive, at least not among our people. The fae I can make no such assertions about. They live what seem unnatural long lives compared to those of us who do not have magic flowing in our veins.

That promise of conflict still keeps the air tense at any meeting of the two sides. We cannot seclude ourselves from the magical folk, of course, just as they cannot do the same to us. We each create things that the other needs, and cooperate for the sake of our own survival, if nothing else.

And we all fear the retribution of the Horned King.

Every new year, the elf lord Halsifon held a grand celebration in his domicile. I had attended in a limited capacity in the past once my father considered me old enough, though I was always sent home in Abba’s care after a few short hours, as I was considered too young to fully appreciate the full extent of the revelries. But this year, my father asked me to go on my own as the official representative of our family. I would have been flattered that he thought me capable of it, and almost excited, if it weren’t for the fact that I knew my father considered it one of his less-pleasant duties. And, truth be told, the thought of facing the fae court in its full splendor without the ability to hide in my father’s shadow was more than a little terrifying.

At least I would not be alone. I would be accompanied by some of the officials who assisted my father—and, more often than not these days, me—in the duties of the Lord Protector, and they were all familiar to me, if not all friends. No person can like every other person they meet, and I’m afraid that some of them could sorely try my patience from time to time.

But as the celebration approached, a subtle terror started to overtake me. I found myself remembering the glimmer and glow of the fae court, remembering how impossibly beautiful they all looked compared to my bony, imperfect, and all too human self. Even if I let Abba outfit me like the fashion plate she always wanted me to become, I’d look as dowdy and miserable as a sparrow among peacocks.

I went to my father in a panic.

“I cannot do this,” I said, clinging to his hand. “I will look ridiculous. They’ll mock me. You’ll lose face if I go in your place.”

My father patted my clinging hands with his free one. “Ikara, calm yourself.”

“I can’t,” I panted out, curling over myself in panic. “I just… keep seeing faces. Elves. Faeries. Perfect and beautiful and all laughing at me.”

Father freed his hand and rubbed my back instead. “Did they laugh before?”

“I don’t think they dared to with you there.” But without my father there to glare them into submission…

Father laughed. “They know you’re the one they’ll have to deal with in years to come. They wouldn’t dare insult you to your face.”

I glared up through my curls at him. It wasn’t what they said to my face that I feared. It was soft titters and mocking smiles, hidden behind fans and lifted hands. It was the knowledge that everyone would be looking at me, _me_ , and judging my fitness to succeed my father based on how I looked and acted. Anything less than perfection would be unacceptable. “Not helpful.”

“Then perhaps you should go to Abba for assistance.”

“Abba?”

“Trolls can create a glamour just as well as any other fae. Perhaps she can do something for you.”

I frowned, even as I considered the matter. “That sounds suspiciously like cheating.”

“Who cares?” he shrugged. “If it will put you at ease to not worry about measuring up, that is all that matters. If you are at ease, you will feel more free to enjoy what parts of the celebration you can… and will be more careful with your manners than you would be if distracted by your appearance and fears of not fitting in.”

“I doubt even Abba, in all her wisdom, could come up with a glamour to make me beautiful,” I sighed, sitting up and brushing my curls back from my face. “Not even by human standards.”

Father smiled and tucked a curl I’d missed back in among the others. “You should not worry about beauty. You are intelligent, you are strong, and you will one day be Lord Protector after me; why should you care about beauty? And you are attractive enough, in your own way. You should not fear that no one will ever think you are beautiful.”

I smiled at him dutifully, not believing a word. “I’ll go find Abba.”

He pointed up at the doorway. “She’s here. I’ll leave you to her.” Father got to his feet and left the room, nodding at Abba on the way out.

Abba came in, lifting her skirts to step over the lintel, and smiled at me. She was wearing no glamour of her own today; her own tightly coiled curls frizzed out in every direction around the curling horns that crowned her head, and the downy hair on her body shone slightly in the light of the mage globe in the room. She always seemed gigantic when not wearing a human glamour, probably because she was.

“How much of that did you hear?” I asked.

“Enough,” she said, smiling. “I see you’ve come around to my point of view, then.”

I made a face at her. “You mean about the proper attire for noble young women? Hardly. Though I suppose if I were more practiced at wearing dresses… no. I’d still look ridiculous.”

Abba laughed at that. “Not as ridiculous as you think. Though I suppose if you’re so set on feeling that way, there is little I can do to change your mind.”

“Maybe you could, at least a little,” I said, looking up at her hopefully. “Is what father said true? Can you put a glamour on me?”

Abba’s mouth fell into a frown. “To be honest, I don’t know. I could put a glamour on you, yes, but it would only be like… like a painting. Just adding another layer to what’s already there, and one that is not difficult to chip away. The fae… they do not like seeing others with glamour. They might remove yours just to be malicious and reclaim what they feel is only their rightful power.”

“Is that why you always stay in your own shape when someone is visiting from Halsifon’s court?” I asked.

A tentative smile came back to Abba’s face, and she nodded.

“But wait. You said it would be like a painting, just overlaying my own features. But I’ve seen you wearing a human glamour. It changes everything about you, even your size.”

“For myself, I can do that. But making those changes in another is not so easy; you have to concentrate on them to hold them in place. Perhaps if you already had the ability to create minor glamours, or to shift your shape, I could help you along, but I’m afraid my methods will not work for you.” 

I felt my face fall again as she spoke. Abba must have picked up on my sudden dejection—not that I was being subtle about it—because she looked as if she were considering something as she continued speaking.

“Although… there is an object that might be of some use. I am not certain it is still here in your father’s palace, but if I can find it, I will be able to weave you a glamour that no fairy magic can pierce through.“

“What is it?”

“You will see if I find it. You go along. It’s the time of day when your father always walks out for a while, and you know he always wants you with him if you are willing to go.”

I thanked Abba profusely and left the room at a run.


	2. Chapter 2

I always found it soothing to go walking out with my father. I knew most of our people by sight, but they approached my father in a way that they did not seem to feel comfortable approaching me yet, and there was always someone new and fascinating to get to know better.

Sometimes the someone new and fascinating was someone newly arrived in the city. One of my father’s duties was to greet new arrivals and wake the city-sense in them, though it was mostly left to others to see that these arrivals got settled in into homes and occupations. Some of them had a hard time adjusting to the fact that they would probably never go back to their old life, and would let their resentment and fear boil over. Others were fascinated by life here, and sprang into it with wild abandon. Both kinds of newcomers could cause trouble, if not reined in and put in a place where they could slowly adjust to the way we lived here.

If asked, many of them would tell stories about the worlds they came from. That was how I came to know that this is an enchanted city. Nowhere else was there a city so large, where food and drink appear as needed, where magic and monsters coexisted with those of us with no magic of their own. Sometimes there were people who had learned to manipulate magic, even if it wasn’t an intrinsic part of their nature. I would always try to convince them to teach me, but none have been able to pass their secrets on to me in a way I could make sense of. Still, I kept trying.

I dashed to my room and tore off my house shoes, grabbing my walking boots off the shoe rack next to the door and a pair of thick socks from a drawer, my cold iron bracers, my long-knife in its sheath, and then headed down the hall to the main stairs in my bare feet. I liked the slapping sound they made on the stone stairs; it reminded me of being small, and running around the great marble floor of the ballroom here in the castle in my bare feet, pursued by Abba or sometimes even my father. Memories of days when my life had been much simpler were becoming more precious to me as I grew into my position as my father’s heir, and every once in a while one would sieze my heart and squeeze it painfully, until I cried for the loss of it.

But there was no time for crying now. I reached the bottom of the stairs, whirled around another corner, and found myself at the main door, where my father was just tightening the laces on his own boots. I sat on the bench next to him and shoved my own feet into socks and then into the boots, hurriedly doing up my own laces and ignoring the look of exasperation my father gave my bare feet and now-sweaty face.

“Are you ready?” he asked as I made my final adjustments, strapping into the gauntlets and securing the sheathed long-knife to my belt.

“Yes, father. Sorry for being late. And for bare feet, I suppose. Though,” I added at his skeptical look, “you have to admit that the stairs are a lot safer to navigate at top speed in bare feet than in house shoes or socks.”

“I suppose it didn’t occur to you to send Abba to ask me to wait? Or that perhaps I might wait for you of my own accord?” he asked, one raised eyebrow making his skeptical look even more so.

“Abba’s busy. She promised she’d find something that could help me at the celebration. I didn’t want to interrupt her.”

“Even so. Running like that—in your bare feet—is undignified. Especially for someone who was making such a fuss not so long ago about looking foolish in front of the faerie court.”

“But that’s different!” I protested. “That’s the faerie court. How I look to them is going to have an effect on how they look at you. But here it’s just you and me and people who don’t give a damn if their heir apparent runs around in her bare feet.”

“I suppose I shall have to reconcile myself to having a barefoot daughter,” father commented dryly. “Though I don’t know what it will take to get our people to accept a barefoot Lord Protector.”

We got to our feet and headed out the front door, nodding to Grenville, our steward, as we left. He looked up from scolding one of the young men who came in to do the cleaning and the cooking for the public kitchens just long enough to nod sagely back at us both, and then went right back to scolding. Once outside, we headed down the path through the decorative little garden that was currently gracing the land in front of the castle to the gates, settling into the long-legged stride that was automatic to us as we headed out on to the street beyond.

I liked the garden, even if it wasn’t very useful. I hoped it would stay for a while. It felt like it would when I probed at it with my city-sense, but you never could tell, not really. The city had a will of its own, and something that seemed as stable as cold iron could melt away like snow in an instant if the city decided it was time for a change.

“I take it that Abba was able to come up with something to help you?” father asked as we proceeded.

“Sort of,” I frowned, biting my lower lip. “Well, not really. She says she could give me a glamour, but that it would offend most of the fae court if I wore it to the celebration. She thought they’d probably rip it off me, and lay into me for presumption. But she said there was something in the castle that might help, she just needs to find it.”

“Ah,” he murmured. “Did she say what this item was, by any chance?”

“No. Why?”

“There are some things in the castle that should not be meddled with, even if they might make you more easy at the celebration. They are safe enough if stored carefully, but I would not use them for frivolous purposes.”

I rolled my eyes theatrically. “You certainly have a lot of magical items laying about for someone who can’t create them.”

Father laughed at that. “I suppose I do. Though some of the treasures we keep are not exactly magical. There are some strange, queer things in this world, Kara. Not all of them fit easily in one category or another. What seems magical can be merely technology beyond our understanding.”

“Have you been talking to Taro again?” I asked. Taro had arrived in the city nearly five years ago from a place where technology had been capable of matching every magic that I knew of, and ever since then they had been coming regularly to the palace to talk with my father and and several of the spell-smiths to theorize about how they could combine Taro’s knowledge with the captured magic that the smiths worked with.

“They were at the castle this morning,” father admitted, looking a little bit sheepish. “Though it is true, some of the things we have been working on together should not be interfered with either.”

I gave him a skeptical look of my own. “You know, you will have to show these things to me some day. If I am meant to become Lord Protector after you are gone, I don’t want to be dealing with any surprises stored away in our castle. I want to know what everything is and what it all does.”

Father gave me a put-upon look. “My own father failed to let me know about most of the things in the castle, and I doubt he even knew himself. I’ve had to call in help from the faerie court to identify even a quarter of what’s in the vault, and I can’t be sure they aren’t lying about some of the items to make me value them less. I am certain there are items in there that Lord Halsifon would love to get his hands on, and if his people tell me it’s worthless…”

“…Halsifon might try to buy it off you at a reduced price,” I finished.

“Something like that. More likely try to steal it away after it gets put in a less carefully guarded place.”

“Still, I will need to know,” I persisted. “Some day. You’re… not always going to be here.”

“True,” father said, smiling at me. “Now tell me, are you going to see that I get grandchildren before I go?”

I knew it was a joke, but the thought of giving birth has always filled me with terror. Bearing a child was, as far as I could tell, an incredibly hazardous occupation, even when you had all the best of everything to help the process along. My mother had, and she still died from giving birth to me. As I wasn’t all that certain that I was interested in the sort of activities that lead to giving birth in the first place, I hadn’t given much thought to my role in securing the succession, and resented my father reminding me of it.

Father could tell from my silence that this was a subject I wasn’t particularly willing to broach at the moment, but he persisted. “At least you could start looking at suitable partners,” he said. “Like that boy Farrow. Didn’t you play with him when you were little? He’s grown up into a fine young man.”

“With an interest in other young men,” I countered.

“That doesn’t have to get in the way of the two of you producing an heir, if you’d rather manage your own affairs,” father said blandly.

I blushed. “I think I can do better than Farrow. And anyway, if you recall, he’s the one who broke my nose.” I tapped the bridge of it, where there was a barely perceptible lump.

“How did that happen, anyway?” he asked, a question I knew I’d answered for him before. Still, it had been nearly two decades since the incident itself, so I supposed I couldn’t blame him for forgetting.

“We were sword-fighting with broom handles,” I reminded him. “Farrow was a little bit overenthusiastic with the walloping.”

By now, we’d reached the first trade square for our part of the city. A number of people were gathered there, waiting for us—or at least for my father—as he kept to a fairly regular schedule with his walks and could be relied upon to visit each of the trade squares in turn.

Two of the people waiting for us had new arrivals with them. You could always tell when someone was new to the city. They wore strange clothes, and most of the time there would be a certain look of awe in their eyes. The city took new people like that. And while most of them were roughly the same shape as my father and myself, they came in all different colors and sizes. They always came alone, too, but they often brought things with them - tools, toys, clothing, always items that had some sentimental value to the person who possessed them.

The city seemed to be indiscriminate about who it took within its bounds, with no pattern to it other than the new arrivals having lost themselves somehow. Even still, it was easy to ascribe some sort of intelligence to the choices it made. Each new person brought something new to the city. Some brought more than others, like Taro, but if nothing else, they all brought change.

Father had recently admitted to me that over the past few years, we had seen more new arrivals than there had been in his entire life up to that point. He had grown used to only greeting one or two new arrivals a month, and sometimes not above six or seven in a year. But that number had been gradually increasing, until now we were getting one almost every day, and sometimes more. And then he had shared his worry that this was some sign of impending trouble with me, though I found it difficult to offer any useful reassurance in return.

When we entered the square, father went directly to Governor Tial—a stout, middle-aged woman who was in charge of this section of the city—to get her report for the day. I headed to the closer of the two new arrivals. This new arrival was a woman, maybe my age or a little older. Her hair was so black it reflected blue and more tightly coiled than even Abba’s, and her skin was almost as dark. She was beautiful to look at, between her dark skin and hair and the bright embroidery in geometric designs on her clothing.

She gave me a hesitant smile as I approached, close-lipped, and I took care to smile the same way. Some folks took bare-toothed smiles as a sign of aggression.

“Welcome to the city,” I said, nodding to the elderly woman who had brought this new arrival, letting her know I would handle things from here. I held out my hand to the new arrival. I wasn’t as practiced at waking the city-sense in them as father was, but that only meant that it took a little longer sometimes, not that I couldn’t do it. “Will you take my hand?” I asked her, trying to sound encouraging.

She glanced down at my hand, a frown creasing her brow, and then back up at me. “I’m sorry.” She sounded distressed. “I don’t understand. Could you speak a little slower?”

It wouldn’t help if I did, my city-sense told me. Now that I had heard her speak, I could tell that her language had very little in common with the patois that served as a common language in the city. “Just take my hand,” I said, resisting the urge to shove in to her personal space and snatch her hand up myself. Perhaps father could act quickly enough to wake the city-sense in an unwilling victim before they managed to break free, but I definitely could not. And this woman looked as if she could break me in half like the twig I resembled if I tried anything she considered untoward.

Slowly, hesitantly, with caution in every line of her body, she placed her hand in mine. I set my other hand over it. She flinched a bit at that, but she didn’t pull away, and that was all I needed.

I’m not sure how to describe how it feels to wake the city-sense in someone. I just know that all I have to do is touch someone in order for my own city-sense to reach out and pull theirs out of dormancy. It feels like... like I’m pulling a great weight out of somewhere, though where that somewhere is I do not know. Nothing happens physically, after all; all anyone watching would ever see is two people holding hands for a long, quiet moment. And I’m not sure that the people on the receiving end feel even so much as I do.

This time was easier than it had ever been before. I held the new arrival’s hand for little longer than a handshake might have been, and then I squeezed it firmly and released her. “There, that’s better,” I said, forgetting myself enough to beam a toothy grin at her. “My name is Ikara Torrinsdaughter. Welcome to the city.”

The woman’s eyes widened in shock. She stared at me for a moment, clearly still processing the fact that she had been able to understand me that time. Another moment passed, and she started looking at her surroundings with an air of dawning realization, clearly _knowing_ where she was in the city, but not quite ready yet to understand how she knew it.

She turned back to me and expressed her current emotional state quite eloquently.

“What the _fuck_.”


End file.
